Student Robbed at Gunpoint Outside Building 1

By Jackson Jung
Associate News Editor

This Sunday at 12:30 a.m., an MIT student was robbed at gunpoint on
Memorial Drive near Building 1.

The thief approached the student and said, "I've got a gun at your back.
Empty your pockets and give me your wallet." The student handed over his
wallet, which contained $10. He was then told to get down on the ground as
the robber fled.

The student described the assailant as a 5-foot, 7-inch black male, in his
twenties. He was wearing a black jacket, white shirt, and black pants.

Despite a search of the area, the campus police did apprehend the
suspect.

Anne P. Glavin, chief of campus police, believes the victim used the
emergency phone located about 60 feet from the scene of the crime to
contact campus police, which helped speed the response.

This was one of the emergency phones installed following the murder of
Yngve K. Raustein '94 on Memorial Drive this past fall, in order to improve
the safety along the road. Glavin noted that the emergency telephones do
not actually stop crimes, but give potential victims more accessibility to
the campus police.

In the crime bulletin describing this incident, the campus police
recommended using the campus safety shuttle service, A Safe Ride, after
dark. However, in this case, the closest shuttle stop was at 77
Massachusetts Ave.

Glavin said that this was not an unusual crime, considering this is an
urban campus.

In an unrelated incident, an MIT student confronted two suspicious, white,
teenage males in the courtyard of the NewWest Campus Houses.
According to the campus police log, the incident occurred at 10:18 p.m. on
Saturday night. The teenagers had scaled the walls to enter the area, and
one of them threatened the student with a knife before leaving.

The student and other witnesses described the intruders to the campus
police, who were later arrested by campus police. The campus police refused
to release the names of the two suspects.

(Editor's note: Sarah Y. Keightley contributed to the reporting of this
story.)